1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing system, an image processing apparatus, and an image processing program product, and more specifically to an image processing system in which a plurality of users utilize a plurality of image processing apparatuses connected to a network, an image processing apparatus, and an image processing program product executed by the image processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, an image processing apparatus such as a scanner, a printer, or a facsimile is commonly used in the form of being connected to a network. In such form of use, a technology in which the same specification is used for the operation panels in all of the image processing apparatuses where a plurality of image processing apparatuses are used is described in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2001-306204. According to the technology described in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2001-306204, when a user inputs user identification information such as a password using an operation panel, the user identification information is transmitted from an image processing apparatus to a file server via a network. A user authentication portion within the file server performs a matching of the transmitted user identification information and the user identification information registered in advance, and when the user authentication is completed, the file server reads a shared setting file corresponding to the user and provides it via the network to the image processing apparatus which requested it. Thereafter, the specification of the operation panel is customized according to the descriptive content of the shared setting file.
According to the technology described in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2001-306204, however, a file server must be provided, and the shared setting file must be stored in the server. Thus, in such a case as where an image processing apparatus is connected anew to the network, such setting is required as storing in the newly connected image processing apparatus a network address of the file server required for accessing the file server. As a result, there was a problem that system modifications could not be accommodated with flexibility.